Around 200 participants will act on the 2.5 km loop of the 24 Hours in Uden, this weekend Saturday 11 / Sunday 12 October. The lists (dated 22 September) on the website of the organising club De Keien give the names of 195 participants in total, with 20 Men teams and 11 Women team competing in the World Challenge 24 Hours.

Teams from the United States, Japan and Korea form the intercontinental part of the première of the IAU World Challenge 24 Hours. The race will also form the IAU European Challenge 24 Hours, so the teams of a number of European countries will compete for the places for both championships. It will be no doubt the 24 hours race with the strongest field ever so. See for easy access to the startlists: http://www.ultraned.org/../n_item/f1759.php

The start will be on Saturday 11 October, at 14:00 local time - is Mid European Summer Time, corresponding to 07:00 New York winter time, or 21:00 Japanese winter time, for example.

Live coverage is planned on the website of the local organising club:
http://www.dekeien.nlwith ChampionChip time updates every three hours. Additional news reports will be published in Dutch and in English.

Supplements (and backup if necessary) of the live coverage will be done by the Dutch/Belgium ultrarunning website UltraNED:
http://www.ultraned.orgwhere Anton Smeets and Martien Baars will be active. We are two of the five-men strong editorial board of our well-known website - despite being most of the articles in Dutch, like the guidelines for running the 24 hours by Anton during the past weeks. Don't worry, we will predominantly publish in English the coming weekend, with among others our views on the race and expectations/predictions, plus whatever we think is worthwhile for an international readers public.

Noteworthy, one of our colleague-editors, Tom Hendriks, is active on the 2.5 km loop himself! He is a team member for The Netherlands for the first time and starts in a 24 hours for the second time. He and all the other 200 participants will undoubtedly enjoy a memorable race. Today's weather forecast for the weekend is rather good, predicting predominantly dry weather with sunny spells. The diurnal difference in temperature conditions will hopefully be not too large: with a day temperature of 14 degrees Celcius and a night temperature of 5 degrees Celcius. The wind prediction is W 4 Beaufort for Saturday 11, and NE 3 Beaufort for Sunday 12 October. As the loop of 2.5 km - including the 400 m of the track of the big club De Keien - is relatively shielded for western winds, the expectations for great results are high.